Hurt Locker?

I really have no idea how someone chooses one movie over another when voting for awards. There should be some set of rigid criteria that determines many of such awards. That being said, I have no memory of ever hearing of or seeing anything about "Hurt Locker". I don't go to very many movies, so I don't see very many trailers on the big screen, nor to I watch live TV on a regular basis. But I'd at least think that if a movie was so amazing that it needed to be granted the designation of "Best Movie of 2009" that I would have at least heard of it before today.